


You Can't Teach Temperance

by stammed_cleams



Category: The Adventure Zone Amnesty, the adventure zone
Genre: Adjusting to Earth, Angst, F/M, Fighting, Mentions of Violence, Talking About the Past, Tenderness, a lot of headcanons about both their pasts basically, adjustment, change, im not good at tagging but its a lot of waynerva drama
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-04
Updated: 2019-12-04
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:20:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21665839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stammed_cleams/pseuds/stammed_cleams
Summary: After moving back from Brazil, Duck and Minerva both struggle to adjust to a typical life, wondering how they are supposed to put the heroic versions of themselves behind them. They have a discussion about their lives before they were close, and talk about the last times they'd cried. An angsty Waynerva one-shot.
Relationships: Duck Newton x Minerva, Waynerva - Relationship
Comments: 3
Kudos: 29





	You Can't Teach Temperance

**Author's Note:**

> so this one may be a little hectic for my normal fics just because i usually prewrite my fics a few chapters ahead! i have not done that this time beacuse im feeling dastardly and i wanna post it right off i dont feel like waiting bc i read some mad good waynerva content and now i wanna add to the Pool. please enjoy this angsty fic!

This was the fourth time. This time it was a man at the DMV. Duck had invited Minerva to come with him to renew his license so she could get a taste of human bureaucracy, but as soon as he had arrived, they asked him for a sheet of paperwork that he hadn’t brought with him. Duck explained that they’d never needed it before. The man, admittedly somewhat rudely, determined that that wasn’t his problem, and told Duck that he could schedule an appointment within another two weeks. This, being far more trouble than expected, made Duck really very angry, but of course this desk worker had nothing to do it, so he was perfectly ready to fume a little bit as he walked out and then spend the drive home complaining. Of course, he should have known better than to appear angry in front of Minerva. Before he knew it she was reaching over the desk and picking the man up by the collar of his shirt. Immediately everyone else was hiding under desks and the eyes of the whole waiting room were wide, as at least three separate people went to call security at once. The man who was working at their desk was crying immediately, lifted completely off his feet and almost certainly thinking his life had reached its end, be it by a rifle he, no doubt, expected Minerva to draw out of her pocket any minute now, or just by being pummeled to a pulp. Minerva, in her great booming voice, had declared, “You will continue the transaction as Duck Newton sees fit!”  
The man couldn’t think of any words. Petrified, Duck made an attempt to pull back on Minerva’s shoulders, but it was like pulling on a tree. He hated when she got like this. She was impossible to reach and terrifying even to him, her teeth gritted, her chest puffed out, her warm brown eyes turned icy in perfectly calculated military rage. Duck was something of an imposing figure himself, having remained very fit even after his trip to Brazil and already having been a few inches taller than the average human male - he felt lucky for it, too, since anyone smaller probably would have been unable to stop her. “Minerva, stand down!” he shouted, and pulled back on her arm with as much force as he could. While he was no match for her strength it was enough for her to notice. Just as she turned to face him the room filled with security. “Ah, Christ… For God’s sake, Minnie, put him down!” Minerva hardened, and obeyed, letting the collar of the man slip through her fingers as he fell to the floor.  
Now Duck found himself in Scheriff Owen’s office with a piercing headache, Minerva in one of the few cells in the sweet little Police House of Kepler. Duck was sitting down on the opposite side of the desk, and Scheriff Owens was standing up with his hands on his hips.  
“Duck, this is the fourth time!” he exclaimed.  
“I know.”  
“Your girlfriend is a public menace, do you know that? We had people coming out of that place in shock, they thought there was gonna be another mass shooting!”  
Duck sank deeper into his chair. “I know, I know.”  
“And yet you’re here to talk me out of charges.”  
He took in a long breath and then, with nothing to say, let it out again. When he didn’t speak, Sheriff Owens leaned towards him with his fists on the desk, but as his posture became more intimidating, his voice became less so. “Look, Duck, I know she’s not human. But frankly, in a way, that’s even worse! If anyone finds out what she is, and what with all the news of Silvane getting out they will find out, they’re not gonna draw the line between her and anyone else who comes from any other planet! If people start to think she’s hostile we could be putting everyone from Silvane and everyone who only lives in Silvane at risk, and you bet your ass that means Aubrey too!”  
Duck held up a hand, “I know, Sheriff Owens, but frankly I think a full… ‘Arrival’ situation is sort of blowing it out of proportion. As it is, most people think the portal to Silvane is a small town hoax, just like what they thought of Barclay in Quebec and Indrid in Pleasantville.”  
Sheriff Owens sighed, knowing it to be true. “Look, Duck, you love her. I get it. You’re willing to make excuses for her because she’s not from here, but the fact of the matter is, she is attacking people, case in point! She needs to understand that on this planet, actions have consequences!”  
“Trust me, that’s how it is for her planet too, just in a different… sort of way…” Duck admitted, before sighing, “I don’t know, Sheriff. I know she’d certainly have no problem staying here a couple days. She’s certainly been through worse. I just keep getting her out ‘cause… I don’t know. Hate to see her cooped up, after all her being… cooped up in that temple.”  
Sheriff Owens have a confused look, before shaking his head, disinterested. “I don’t rightly know what that means, Duck,” he said, pointing a finger, “But because you saved my city and my world I’m gonna let her out this one more time. But after this, it’s her own problem.”  
With a nod, Duck not only understood, he agreed. 

As this went on, Minerva and Dewey were in the cell together, Dewey’s ear pressed not simply against the wall, but also slightly through it. Over the course of the past few months, they had gotten on fairly good terms. Because Dewey typically hung around the police station haunting petty criminals they had seen quite a bit of each other, and well, Dewey was frankly a difficult person not to get along with. He was nonjudgmental, helpful, if a little thoughtless, and Minerva always made an attempt to reassure and encourage him back. Together they ended up sort of a pleasant upward spiral, despite the fact that what they talked about wasn’t usually of much substance. This was the second time Dewey had eavesdropped on Sheriff Owens and Duck.  
“Oh, he’s not happy…” he said to Minerva, raising his eyebrows. Minerva, who was sitting on the small bed with her shoulders hunched over in guilt, perked up.  
“Which of them?” she asked.  
“Sheriff Owens. Somethin’ about how you’re a public menace, how Duck’s gotta keep you under control.”  
Minerva groaned, and buried her head in her hands. She sighed, placing her elbows on her knees, and sank down even lower. “I am a fool,” she said heavily.  
“Now, hey, don’t beat yourself up about it!” Dewey encouraged, “There’s been a couple o’ times I wanted to get real nasty with someone at the DMV! That place is - I tell you - that place is charged! Bad energy in there, for sure.”  
Casually, Minerva ignored what Dewey had said, head still in her hand. “I keep insisting to Duck that I should simply serve my time, but he will not allow it. It is what I have earned, I must face my consequence…”  
Dewey snorted. “We haven’t had anybody actually serve time here since Pidgeon, and that was for… well… for you know what,” Dewey was sober for a moment, a state that didn’t suit him, before perking right back up again, his spectral form floating up an inch or two as he turned to face Minerva, “Trust me, we never keep people in here. I don’t think he’d know what in Heck to do with ya!”  
“Nevertheless,” Minerva insisted, standing up, “I have put people in danger for no reason, and for that, I deserve to be punished! In the order, atrocities such as this would be punished with starvation, isolation, lashes across the back!”  
Dewey squinted at her. “I don’t wanna jump to conclusions Ms. Minerva, but it sorta sounds to me you want some sorta punishment for it.”  
Minerva shot him a look, but before he had time to interpret it, two forms revealed themselves in front of the bars of the cell. A bitter look on his face, Sheriff Owens unlocked the door. “You’re free to go,” he said. Minerva was looking down. When Duck spoke, it was soft, horribly, awfully soft.  
“Come on, Minnie,” he said. 

The two of them got into the car, Duck in the driver’s seat and Minerva barely fitting into the passenger seat as far back as it could go, and for a moment, he didn’t start the car. It was a sweltering summer day, and the windows only focused the sunlight. Neither of them appeared to notice. They both looked out at the police station out the windshield, both of them silent for a moment, Duck’s hands resting on the steering wheel.  
“You should have left me there,” Minerva said, her voice icy and filled with guilt, “I deserve to be incarcerated.”  
“Incarcerating you won’t do any good,” Duck answered, though he made no attempt to refute her original point. “You spent a pretty big chunk of your life incarcerated, didn’t make you any less aggressive.”  
Minerva looked at him, and it was clear how deeply the insult cut her, so much so that she winced like it was a physical blow. But quickly she composed herself, turning to the window again.  
“Minnie, you can’t keep doing this. I… I don’t know how to get it through your head that you can’t just stab and beat your way through life here! There’s, there’s a process, there’s bureaucracy, there’s - that man at the DMV was just doing his job, he didn’t know any better.”  
“He was keeping you from your task, Duck Newton.”  
“And he was a person, Minerva, don’t you see that?!” Duck answered, and now he sounded truly angry, “Listen, Minnie, you cannot just kill everybody who irritates me.”  
“My intention was not to kill him, it was merely to frighten him.”  
“Well, the man’s in shock thinking he was about to get a gut full of bullets, so you sure as fuck succeeded in that!” Duck exclaimed, and smacked the steering wheel. Minerva hung her head. After a moment, she went on.  
“You are right, Wayne…” she admitted, “I… I do not know… what came over me.”  
Duck sighed, sympathetic. “Where is this coming from? This wasn’t happening in Brazil, at least not like this.”  
Minerva didn’t answer for the very simple reason that she didn’t know. She had had a few vaguely similar incidents when they were working in Brazil, but not this frequent and not this bad. They usually didn’t come from a place of anger at all - they were playful shoves that were too rough, getting startled by someone and hitting them far too hard. They weren’t like this, so warlike, so enraged. Not because Minerva never tried to start fights, but because she was more easily stopped. Recently she’d been reckless, wild. Everytime he went somewhere with her, Duck worried she would end up shot. “I am sorry, Wayne Newton,” she eventually said, “I do not know what I must do to rid myself of this shame I have caused you.”  
Duck cast her a look, and then, sticking the keys in the ignition, roughly started the car and started driving into the night. Then, seeing that his aggression was unwarranted, his face took on a contemplative look as he got on the road. “I’m not ashamed, Minnie,” he said, and laid a hand on her shoulder, “Look, I - I get it, okay, it’s… it hasn’t been easy for me going back, either. Hell, every time I get startled I’ve been pulling my damn belt out like some kind of moron… I don’t know how to stop being the Chosen One, and I don’t think you know how to stop being the General, but we’re gonna find a way to make it work, okay?”  
Minerva nodded, and smiled gently. “You are as patient as ever, Wayne Newton,” she mused softly. She stared out the window, watching the buildings pass and the moonlight cast shadows long across the dim grass. The drive was rocky beneath her, the roads in Kepler unmaintained and rough. Images rushed through her mind, of the DMV attendant, yes, but also of her homeworld. Images of her slamming her fist against a conference table and demanding that they strike, of her pinning her enemies against a wall and spitting threats into their faces, of brandishing her sword from atop a great, saddled beast and slicing open the throats of a thousand foes in mere minutes, her robes heavy with blood. “Do you ever think, Duck Newton,” Minerva eventually said, “That perhaps you cannot be who you are and be content at the same time?”  
Duck chuckled thoughtfully at that. He remembered long nights in college kept awake by the stress of saving the world, standing over the edge of a tall cliff and seriously contemplating throwing Beacon off the edge of it. Years of working in forestry, always thinking about what he was neglecting, never quite… right. As he pulled into their apartment parking lot, Duck admitted to her the truth. “All the time,” he said. 

Minerva went out with little explanation pretty much as soon as the two of them got back inside. This was no surprise to Duck - it was what she typically did after these sorts of things, go into the forest to clear her mind for a while. But still, he ached while she was gone. It surprised him to the fullest extent how much he could love her. He’d learned to recognize her by her silhouette, to spot her in a crowd from several yards away. When he was discouraged he heard her voice, exuberant as ever, insisting that he carried on, and he smiled. She had the brightest smile, the most beautiful eyes. So many years of trying to get her to leave him alone felt like such a waste? Couldn’t he see it back then, too? After all, how could he have missed it? Her beauty was the most obvious thing in the world to him now.  
As Minerva walked outside he brewed himself a cup of coffee, her worry on his shoulders. It was strange. He found, after some thought, that he was having just as much trouble adjusting as she was. Oh, it didn’t show by any means. But every time another place came in the news that needed reforesting he was ready to throw his things into his car, already packed, always packed. He’d kept the broadsword that he’d used up on the satellite dish and kept it leaning next to his bed, he’d practiced every night. It seemed like it would be so easy to give it all up back in Brazil. He’d wanted for so long to just stop and now it seemed like that was impossible. He sighed, leaning against the counter. It was hot in the house tonight - he could feel a damp sweat through his shirt, a lightness in his head that came from the humidity. The lights inside contrasted with the startling darkness of the night and made the windows into mirrors, and all his kitchen seemed to wait for him to move. There was a small load of dishes in the sink, undone. With a breath, he closed his eyes. He imagined, for a moment, what it would be like if it did finally stop.  
Him making eggs in the kitchen, and Minerva waking up and planting a kiss on his cheek. They have breakfast together and Duck tells her about the rare type of bird he saw earlier that day, and Minerva demands as much detail as he is able to give. Then Duck realizes he’s late and works a normal nine to five as always, just walking through the forest, unbothered, at peace. While he’s gone he knows Minerva is not only happy she is busy, doing some other job… Duck couldn’t imagine what that was. Not a desk job, that would drive her mad. Something physical, where she used her hands. A farmer, a plumber, a carpenter. He smiled at that one, imagining Minerva in some sort of workshop, when she got that very focused look in her eyes, breaking boards in half with her bare hands without any semblance of effort, and then proudly revealing her craft. She would love that, Duck thought. Either way, after both of them were done they’d both come home and tell each other that things were uneventful, and Duck and Minerva would take turns putting on movies some nights, Minerva inevitably picking Conan the Barbarian for half of them until he knew it all verbatim. But some nights they would just have dinner, or read books, or go for long walks through the woods. They would be with each other. They might, Duck thought with amazement, even grow old.  
And then he opened his eyes and things were all the same again. A sword was in his bedroom. Minerva was outside feeling bitter. He was so tired.  
In a swift, single movement he walked for the door and snatched up his coat, hoping that the forest was big enough for the both of them. 

As Duck contemplated this, Minerva was doing what she normally did - practicing the incredible martial arts she knew on a great towering pine. The skin of her knuckles didn’t even seem to scratch as it hit against the rough tree bark, and with every strike a new flurry of pine needles fell down to the ground. This beating was harder than those in the past. The word that was pounding at her head was failure. She’d tried to save her planet and she failed. She tried to create a report with her students and she failed. And now, with nothing left in front of her, her only expectation was that she would live luxuriously and treat those around her well, and even at that, time and time again, she failed! With every pulse of the word her blows grew harder, knocking bark from the trunk of the tree in swatches. She began to hear cracking. She didn’t care. All she had ever done was make Duck’s life more stressful, was to train him to be violent, and time and time again, he responded with love and light and kindness. She deserved none of it. She deserved for Duck to cast her out, to strike her down as he struck down all other forces that have cursed his life. But if Duck had done that, it would have made him into her. And Duck was nothing like her. He was good, he was loving. Nothing like her.  
As the very rare feeling of tears in her throat came upon her Minerva let loose a final blow, and with it her mind declared that all she would ever be was a force of destruction, never of beauty. And a moment later, she knew it to be right. Immediately after her final punch she froze, and calmed, and the air went quiet. With a heavy sigh the great oak before began to crack at the base like a matchstick, bark flying off, sticks jutting out like bones, and in a sagely, sorrowful movement, it lay down onto the forest floor. Minerva looked at her victim and fell to her knees in mourning.  
She remained out there for quite some time, sitting on the shelf of the tree she had felled, one elbow on her knee, her other hand on the base of the tree patting softly, as if in a quiet apology. She didn’t cry - she hadn’t cried since the day she saw the last city of her world crumble. But she did something else - something that, honestly, she didn’t even notice she was doing. Absentmindedly, she began singing to herself. A deep, brazzy baritone echoed through the pines, long notes that were laden with sorrow and pain and a haunting sort of beauty, incomparable to anything on Earth. The language it was spoken in was startlingly harsh in places, rasps in the throat and hard k’s like in hebrew, but it was broken up by long L and Z sounds, extended vowels, making it sound almost celtic. Duck heard this music distantly, and immediately his ears perked up to it, asking that the birds and the wind be silent. He stood listening to the source of it as the clouds rolled over the moon, feeling that the sounds of the voice could bring him to tears at any second. The rolling vowels struck him in the chest and pulled him towards the music, with no control over which direction he went. He followed it, as a sunflower follows the sun. When he found the source of it, his eyes went wide.  
“Minerva,” he said, with soft amazement. Minerva startled as Duck came out of the trees, stopping immediately. She decided quickly not to tell him what she had been doing beforehand - after all, he could probably tell how recently a tree had fallen anyway.  
“Duck!” she said, standing up and smiling broadly, “You will have to forgive me, I was just... enjoying the night, as I’ve said!”  
“Was that you?” Duck persisted.  
Minerva thought for a moment, before understanding. “Ah. That,” she said, “You will have to forgive me, Duck Newton, I must have been feeling nostalgic.”  
“It was… beautiful. I didn’t know you…” he wasn’t rightly sure how to finish that sentence. Sang? Knew about music? Cared about music? In some way, it just seemed like a strange picture of Minerva - he had never known her to take an interest in much other than fighting. “Was that… from Five?”  
Minerva nodded. “Yes it is… a very old, very traditional song, I don’t really know what- what made me think of it again, to be honest with you. I suppose it just… got in my head and I ended up humming to myself. I hope I did not disturb you, I was not intending to be heard…”  
Duck shook his head. “You’re certainly not disturbing me, I’m sorry, I’m the one who’s disturbing you, it seems like. I just… I’ve never heard music like that before, and I’m not normally a music buff, but I just couldn’t help but follow it, see if I could find the source… I’ll… leave you be, if you’d rather.”  
“No, it’s alright, Duck, I was just heading back,” Minerva answered. “Would you care to join me?”  
“Yeah. ‘Course,” Duck said, and found his place by her side. He cast a glance at the fallen tree and quickly recognized something about it, but decided not to bring it up. “Hey, what was that song about, anyway? It sounded awful sad.”  
“Yes, it is one of our most sorrowful of traditional songs,” Minerva said as she walked confidently through the wood, her hands behind her back. “It is what is sung at the death proceedings of children, or those who died of illness or cruel accident. It is a funerary song for those who died without honor. It was the dread of our planet, Duck, for to sing it after someone’s death meant to send them to Enzechem, the second world. The religions on my planet were… very complicated, and I will not bore you with the details.”  
“Minnie, please, if I get to bore you with every mediocre 80s comedy ever made then you get to tell me about some of the most sacred rituals you know,” Duck encouraged lightly. He made an attempt not to look as fascinated as he did - after all, she never talked about her people, about her life before him. Minerva smiled at his comment.  
“I enjoy these comedies, Duck Newton,” she assured him, “I especially liked the one about the small rodent and the unathletic sport.”  
“Caddyshack. Classic,” Duck said immediately. As time went on he was getting progressively better at piecing together Minerva’s defamiliarized descriptions of common things.  
“If you wish to know, Duck, then I shall tell you. Enzechem was the second world, the land after death for those who accomplished nothing. It is a horribly sad place, where you drift on forever witnessing different versions of your life where you were better, where you worked harder. It is the place for those who were wronged and did not have the chance to die gloriously.”  
“If it was so horrible, why’d you want to send them there?” Duck asked.  
“Because if there is no song after death, then you are sent to Kaurez, the third world. This resembles your idea of Hell, Duck Newton, as it is all engulfed in flame and filled with the screams of those pathetic enough to be forgotten,” she explained. As she delved back into a memory, Minerva kept her eyes forward, her gate remaining steady. “I sang the song you heard before ten thousand people once,” she said, “It was after the destruction of Oamun, a city protected by walls of steel. It had served as a safe haven for evacuation of civilians, and the ratio of children to adults was a staggering three to one. Five hundred thousand people had lived there. There were no survivors.”  
“My God…” Duck muttered, horrified. Soberly, Minerva nodded.  
“What was left of the children was traditionally buried, but there was no way to mark the graves - too little of them was left. How do you identify the parents of a tooth, a finger, a lock of hair?” As she said this a chill ran down her spine and a small wince came over her face, before it darkened further, “The death proceedings were done only once for all of them, and everyone was there. I was somewhat tone deaf, Duck Newton, and should not have been the one for the job but… to be interrupted during the song by tears is a sign of disrespect towards the dead, so as it turned out I was the only one strong enough. Everyone was weeping, Duck Newton. I saw people who had toppled towers and speared heads falling to their knees with grief.”  
Duck stared at her, mouth open for a moment, unable to fathom what he could say to that. It was easy enough to just say ‘war’ and keep that clean little label on it. He had never pictured the details. The horror, the impact it had on absolutely everyone. In the war he fought, he’d lost one friend, and he thought about it every single night, how it could have gone differently, whether he’s somewhere conscious or just a body in the dirt. Five hundred thousand people. Good God. He looked to her and spoke knowingly, “You didn’t cry though, did you?”  
Minerva’s back straightened. “I was a figure on my home planet, a figure of invincibility. As the admirable war general I was I could not be seen crying, not even for a moment, lest the entire planet lose hope.” She looked at Duck, at the horror on her face, and then turned seriously back to the ground. “To you, this is a negative, Duck Newton. You think that I am numb. That I cannot function in this manner.”  
Duck shook his head. “I don’t think that,” he said to her honestly, “I just think… I think that’s horrible. What you been through, and you didn’t even have… I mean, I never knew…”  
“Never knew what, Duck Newton,” she said, and for a moment she seemed taller, stronger, speaking once again as the powerful general. He shivered, and his words escaped him. He had no way to put it - he just found himself staring at her, tragedy in his eyes. The more he learned about her, the more alone she seemed. He had always pictured that before her world collapsed she was surrounded by boisterous giants just like her, a family, friends. The more he saw, the less likely that seemed. After a moment, Minerva considered a question. “Did you weep, Duck Newton?” she asked, “For your friend?”  
Duck’s head spun at the quick change of topic, before he looked down. “No…” he said, surprised. The death of Ned had hit harder than almost anything in his life - and yet, he had been too busy at the time, and when it was all over it felt like a distant memory. “No, I… I guess I didn’t, did I?”  
At this point Minerva had stopped walking, as they came to the edge of the forest, the light in their apartment, still on, shining yellow in the blue distance. “When was the last time, for you?” she asked.  
Duck thought about that. It had been a very long time, hadn’t it? He was more inclined to get angry or just go cold, much like Minerva, it occurred to him. He hadn’t flat out cried in… My God, had it really been months? Could it really have been years? Finally it came to him. “There was a scare with Jane,” he finally said, “She was… in a car accident, we both were, when I was in my early thirties. I had… just dropped Beacon off at Ned a few weeks ago and he… he made a big fuss about that the way he does. I distinctly remember him saying ‘you’ll need me, boy, when you least think you’ll need me, you’ll need me again, and I won’t be there to help you!’. Well, when Jane and I were in that accident I got trapped in the driver’s seat by my seatbelt and… Jane had hit her head on the passenger side. She was bleeding, going in and out of consciousness, my phone was out of reach from where I was. And I remember… it was weird, cause I remember thinking it was you who did it.”  
Minerva creased her eyebrows. “Me?” she asked.  
“I know it’s not logical,” Duck said, shaking his head, “But I… I kept thinking about what Beacon said, and I knew that if he was here he could cut the belt easy as anything and I could get Jane right out of there. It took a few minutes for the cops to get there and by the time they did her heartbeat was almost completely gone, so much so that when they finally got her in the ambulance they had to use the… defibrillators and everything. In the end she was fine, by the way, minor concussion and a few scrapes and bruises… but when I was in there, you know, shaking her shoulders, tryna check her pulse and do something to help her… I realized I couldn’t do a goddamn thing. And I thought maybe this is because I shirked this, you know, maybe you were an angel and this was God’s punishment. So in that car all alone I just… started sobbing at the sky. Praying I guess, begging for another chance. Sorta off-brand for me, but I really thought it was because I abandoned my quest, and I… I just kept saying ‘don’t drag her into this, kill me, I did it.’ That night I said, you know, to the air that I’d do it, and, well… you didn’t answer. I asked Ned if he threw Beacon away and he said no and, well… I didn’t say that I was relieved about it, but I was thinkin’ about it. In the next couple weeks I chilled back out again and got back into the zone of… not wanting to be involved in anything. But it… it just shook me, I guess. I hadn’t cried like that in ages, before, neither, you know, really hard like that.”  
“Had I known I was causing you such distress, Duck, I would have appeared to you sooner and explained the situation!” Minerva assured him, some lightness coming back into her tone.  
“Ah, well, you can’t blame yourself for it, like I said it was just sort of… my take on things,” he said, and then quickly went on, shoving his hands in his pockets, “What about you? Have you um… have you ever cried?” It occurred to him, then, that it was not an easy thing to picture.  
“Since my youth?” Minerva asked, and her face hardened. “Only once.” She paused for a moment, looking thoughtfully down at her hands. “It was after I had been trapped in the temple, just after I lost contact with Leo. I had been speaking with various other bases for quite sometime using a system of long-distance communication that was still functional in the temple. By then, it was narrowed down to one representative from one city. He informed me that there was nobody left besides me and the small group that he was with. One night he reached me and in a soft voice simply said… ‘they’ve found us.’ Then there was a commotion and the signal went dead.” Her head lifted, the look in her eyes heavy. “That was the day I knew not only was I the only one left, I was the last. My species reproduces as yours does, Duck Newton, with the genes from two separate participants. I knew then that this world… these people I had loved would die with me. That made me cry, Wayne.” There was a silence between them, before Minerva smiled slightly, “Though that film you showed me a few days ago, The Green Mile, it brought me close as well,” she joked.  
Duck didn’t smile. He was too busy staring at her. There were moments, rare moments, when Minerva allowed herself to stay between the two versions of herself. There was the persona, the mentor, the ever-exuberant, ever-smiling, ‘you can do it’ Minerva, the one that was a front she’d made so many years ago in an attempt to create heroes, to make both her own people and the people of others believe her. Then there was the war general, angry, cold, horrible, spiller of blood, comitter of genocide, the Minerva that sent chills down Duck’s spine even after all these years. That side of hers was the other defense - it was what she used to separate from herself when the boisterous mentor would not serve the role. But there were moments, only on some nights and only in front of Duck, when both of those were gone. She became the truest version of herself, the one that watched two worlds burn and knew that she’d started the flame. In the moonlight she was standing upright, her eyes ancient and stoic, upturned towards the stars with grief running all through her posture. Her shoulders were low, and weary, her full lips slightly parted, her breathing so very slow. She was thoughtful, and aware. She was so dignified and royal and mind-bogglingly beautiful that Duck felt more inclined to fall to his knees than he had in the presence of Silvane herself.  
After a moment, Minerva gave a sly smile. “You are staring, Duck Newton,” she said, “Is that not rude on Earth as well?”  
Duck laughed, somewhat startled. “Man, you just get smoother and smoother at this joke thing every day that passes, huh?”  
“I have been practicing!” she assured him.  
“Yeah, I know you have, I know,” he said. Then, with a grin, he linked his arm with hers, leaning into the warmth of her shoulder and beginning to walk with her back to their apartment. “Let’s go to bed, huh, honey?”  
“Yes, Wayne,” she agreed. “Let’s.”


End file.
